We're Jason, Beth, Lee Anna, Sawyer, and Sarah Claire, a family of five living, learning, and laughing lots in Northern Africa.
We hope you can learn a little (and maybe laugh a little too) as you read about our latest adventures.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Sawyer Andretti

The rules about car seats here are a little lax. Okay, so really there are no rules about kids in safety seats. In most of the taxis we ride in, there aren't even any seat belts, so we couldn't hook up a car seat if we had one. So, in all of Sawyer's 15 months of life, he's never been strapped in a car seat. Instead, he spends most of our taxi rides sitting up front in Daddy's lap, grabbing things off the dashboard, playing with the driver, and breaking whatever he can find to break.

Occasionally it gets even more exciting than that. Some drivers apparently think Sawyer is about old enough to start learning to drive, so they put him in their laps and let him help steer. Usually this happens just on quiet streets, but not always. Last week, Sawyer was driving us down a congested street with stop-and-go traffic. The car behind us honked several times, and then when they pulled up beside us, the driver told them, "Be patient. He's still learning!"

Here's a little video from one of Sawyer's driving adventures. Watch closely, and you'll also get to see another rarity here--a car with its headlights on. Most drivers don't use their headlights at night because they think it's rude to shine that bright light in other drivers' eyes. Beth was in a taxi recently, and the driver yelled at another driver to turn off his headlights!


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